


I'm Looking Through You

by blindlyseeking



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Band, Dysfunctional Relationships, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-19
Updated: 2014-02-18
Packaged: 2017-12-15 12:29:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 20,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/849582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blindlyseeking/pseuds/blindlyseeking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been five years since Frank and Gerard last saw each other. When they run into each other on the busy streets of New York, it seems like they have a chance at a fresh start. But the past runs deep and neither boy is quite the same as they were before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

["Your Ex Lover Is Dead" - Stars](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdTQqxcOkNM)

 

April 23rd, present

            “Gerard?” I am walking down the street as I hear it. Though it has been years since I last heard it, I don’t think I ever forgot the way his lips moved around my name. I turn around and, sure enough, there he is for real – not a silly dream or my imagination getting away from me again. He’s changed in the last few years, though still unmistakable. Perhaps he’s more hardened than before. There are no dark circles under his eyes.

            “Frank,” I say. I don’t smile. I don’t cry. Instead, I take in a deep breath.

            “When… when did you get back?” Frank asks, tattooed fingers playing with his jean pocket.

            “Two years ago,” I answer.

            “Two _years_ ago?” he says.

            “It’s a big city.” We stand in silence while hundreds of people rush around us. We are the eye of the storm. Honestly, I don’t know how to feel about seeing him again. The time that has passed is painfully obvious. My heart is pounding like nothing else I’ve known.

            “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?” Frank asks at last, gesturing down the street. I nod and we walk down together, a carefully measured distance apart from each other. I don’t know what to say.

            “How have you been?” Frank asks me as we walk inside. Even at this time of day, it’s still bustling with people trying to find their caffeine fix before entering the monotony of their jobs once again.

            “Good. I spent a lot of time figuring things out, you know. Got to see Mikey again.”

            “I figured. Look after you left – “

            “It’s okay,” I say and move slightly closer to him. “You don’t have to.”

            “What made you come back?” Frank asks. His eyes are burning into mine. I forgot the intensity of his eyes and the way it makes me feel like he might be seeing something inside of me that even I can’t see. It’s disconcerting after all this time.

            “I don’t know… I think I missed it here.”

            For all that I forgot about him, it was nothing compared to how hard I tried to forget how much I loved him.

            “It’s good to see you,” he says. I look at him for any sort of hit of bitterness or resentment, but he’s so sincere. And, despite myself, it’s so good to see him.

            “It’s good to see you too,” I say. After that, we order our coffee. He still orders the same thing after all these years. I’m hit with a memory of the time after college when he got banned from a Starbucks for staging a concert there after they couldn't book a venue. I laugh, out loud and everything, at the thought of it and Frank gives me a confused look. Somehow, he managed to remain childish and bright. I smile at him. It feels funny but not entirely bad. Nothing’s ever entirely bad with him.

            Frank is staring out the window now, intensely wrapped up in his own mind. I wonder what he thinks about seeing me again. Is he mad at me? He should be. After what I did, I wouldn’t even talk to me.

            To distract myself, I say he’s looking good. Frank shyly scratches his neck and says thank you and likewise. We both blend into the corner of the café. I always love small cafes that give you obnoxiously colored mugs with matching saucers and moody piano music in the background. I know Frank used to too.

            At long last, the barista brings us our coffee. Frank is staring out the window again. “Tell me if you or your date want anything else,” the barista says to me.

            “I’m not… “ Frank begins, but by the time he’s snapped out of his reverie the man is gone. I shrug. We are sitting a little close anyways. Just a habit, I remember. I remember all our little habits.

            “So, tell me,” I say. “What’s changed in five years?”

            “Oh,” he sighs, running a hand along the back of his head. When I last saw him, it was feathery and curled just around his ears but now it’s cropped close against his head. Frank is wearing his signature fingerless gloves and a light sweater, but I can just barely see his finger tattoos poking out and the scorpion wrapped around his neck. “A lot, I guess. I won’t remember anything though. You… you know how shit my memory is.” That’s a lie. Frank remembers everything. “I got a job. I mean, nothing fancy. Nothing I really like either, but it pays the bills and they don’t give me shit about my tattoos.”

            “You’re not playing guitar anymore?” I ask, shocked.

            “No, I still play. Not really for anyone but me. Just writing shit songs in my room just like when we- I was a kid.” He takes a gulp of coffee, never shifting his gaze. Frank doesn’t stare directly at me, maybe at my shoulder or my chin. It makes me feel real self-conscious. “Well, how about you? Are you doing anything today?”

            “No. Just came back from my editor. We’re about to launch a new series.”

            “No shit? What’s it this time?”

            I tentatively explain it to him. Frank seems to like the idea, asking me lots of questions and nodding his head along.

            “What was California like?” he asks. I am afraid that if I talk about it too much that Frank might get angry because he’ll feel like I’m rubbing something in his face. I’m taken aback by his question.

            “Really different. You know that they don’t sell Monster Cereal there? Not a single Boo Berry.” He smiles weakly at my joke, but nothing more. I keep reminding myself not to expect open arms from him. Why would he ever treat me well again? “But it’s nice there. Everyone bikes places. I mean, not me. But everyone else biked everywhere. I wrote a lot of stories. Some were comics for little Ellie – shit she’d punch me for that, six and three quarters is no longer to be considered ‘little’ – but others were just… reflections. I guess mostly I thought.” Frank nods understandingly.

            “How’s Ray?” I ask.

            “You missed his wedding,” Frank answers sharply.

            “What?”

            “Mikey, Alicia, and the kids were there.”

            “But… when was it?” It feels like I’ve just been plunged headfirst into icy water. How could I have missed my friend’s wedding and _not even known?_

            “Three summers ago. Same place Mikey got hitched.” Frank is frowning into his mug of coffee.

            “I… I was touring most of that year, but I spent a couple months with Grant in Scotland. I feel so… why didn’t anyone tell me?”

            “They weren’t sure if you wanted to be back here. It’s not like you really made an effort to stay in touch. With our friends.”

            “I would never….” I was going to say I would never abandon my friends, but who am I kidding? I couldn’t be a bigger hypocrite. “I should go,” I say, getting up and adjusting my coat.

            “Wait,” Frank says, reaching out like he’s about to touch me but won’t. “Do you want to go out for a smoke?”

            “I quit,” I say. It’s only now that I wish I didn’t.

            “Yeah me too,” he smiles, closed mouthed. I nod and so we go to the drugstore next door and buy a pack. I know it’s stupid but I still carry a lighter on me. In the alley behind the drugstore, we stand opposite a dirty old couch resting by a dumpster. Frank lights a cigarette, the flame orange and flickering in his hazel eyes. I remember. I remember that look. And then he grins around his cigarette, the small grin of relief, the third of his eight different smiles, each one as breathtaking and terrible as the last. Then, as quickly as it came with the flare of his lighter, it’s gone. I inhale a little, feeling my old bad habit settle in.


	2. Chapter 2

["Ride Friendship" -  Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz6GwY0eiWk) 

 

November 31st, 2000

            Gerard Way’s floor is ideal for getting drunk on. Which is good too, because that’s only what we do about half the time. We used to try to go out to frat parties, maybe pick up someone cute or something, but it turns out that that’s not really how college works for fags like us. It actually turned out for the better anyways because hanging out with Gerard on his living room floor is so much better.

            It’s not at all like it was in high school. He’s so fucking different than he was back then. I mean, it’s been about four years since we’ve really been close, but I expected him to still be that fumbly kid that knew way too much about Lord of the Rings. Okay, he’s still pretty fumbly and knows way too much about Lord of the Rings, but he’s also _hot_. Gerard cut his own hair so it’s this sweeping mess of black fluff that is just the right length for running your fingers through. Speaking objectively, Gerard is optimal sex material. He lost a lot of weight since high school, but he’s still soft around the edges and very, very sweet. He’s the kind of guy that might call you up late at night and tell you that he watched a movie and a character reminded him of you. Or give you the last cigarette and ruffle your hair like his four years of superiority made him infinitely wiser. I think that he maybe knows me on some spiritual level where he knows to take me shopping at Goodwill for scarves or complain about how the imperialism of higher education is sucking out our souls just when I need it the most. I think he’s the only friend that I still manage to get nervous around.

            So, somehow, he manages to get me very drunk and sprawled on his living room floor. He’s asleep (Gerard can be a very sleepy drunk sometimes) and I’m staring up at him from this angle, seeing his mouth gaping open and half falling off the couch. In my drunken haze of mind, I decide that a heart to heart is in order.

            I poke Gerard’s nose in an attempt to get him to wake up. When he doesn’t, I bat at his face more persistently which leads to smoothing his hair out of his face which leads to a very confused half-awake Gerard.

            Unlike any other rational human being, he laughs.

            “What are you doing to me?” he mumbles.

            “Shh this is a touching moment,” I remind him. This is obviously a very touching moment.

            “Fine,” Gerard says, poignantly rolling off the couch and crashing on top of me. We both crack up. “What do you want from me, asshole?”

            “You’re squishing me!” I yelp. We grapple and laugh some more. Eventually, we end up sprawled out on the rug, having rediscovered the tequila and giving it another go. He takes a swig and passes it to me. Once I have adequately gotten in touch with my inner “ _man I’m so fucking wasted right now_ ”, I recall what I woke him up for.

            “Isn’t it funny how different you are from high school?” I ask. Gerard decides to Ponder the question. He’s always Pondering things like they’re the million fucking dollar question or something.

            “I don’t know. I don’t feel very different. It’s just that now I have to pay rent,” he says. “I guess maybe I don’t feel so alone anymore. I felt alone then, like nothing was ever going to change. But other things, other _feelings_ …” he said, sort of reaching out to play with my shirt collar. “They’re still here.” I laugh out loud then, and he looks quizzical. “What?”

            “It’s just, oh God this is going to sound so dumb, but I used to have like the _biggest_ crush on you in high school. Like, I didn’t _know_ it then because I basically refused to be the little fag at school, but I totally was. I just thought, like, you put the fucking stars in the sky or something.”

            “You did not!” Gerard says and turns to face me.

            “I totally did! Okay, it’s fucking embarrassing. Stop looking at me.” Gerard’s face shifted into something inscrutable. “Why are you looking at me like that? Stop it!” I try to bat him away playfully, but he keeps on looking at me with comically huge eyes.

            “You actually had a crush on me?” he asks quietly.

            “Well… yeah. How couldn’t you?” I don’t look at him. Eye contact is totally not my thing, and Gerard has this thing (usually after he Ponders) where it looks like maybe he could stare in your fucking _soul_ or something. He tips my head up and places his lips precisely and calculatedly on mine. We both sit there for a moment, getting used to the feeling of each other’s mouths. He feels like candle wax and butterflies in your stomach. He pulls away suddenly and grabs my hand.

            “You know I didn’t put the stars in the sky right. I’m not special like that. I’m just… me.”

            “Gerard,” I say, looking for the right words. “You are the most impossible and wonderful person I have ever met.” That’s when he really starts kissing me. He grabs me right around my waist and kisses me like he’s starving. His hands are balled up in my t-shirt and pressed in fists against my back. I push into him too, wanting to get as close as I possibly can. I roll on top of him and brace myself on my forearms. He pushes upward until we’re sitting up and grabbing at every bit of each other with our legs twined around each other. I can’t help but making little sounds in the back of my throat and kissing him just a little sloppily.

            “I _know_ ,” he groans against my mouth in response to something I never said. It’s him who slides his tongue in and it’s then I can’t take it anymore. I grab his hair tightly and he gasps. “Frankie… _shit_ ,” Gerard sighs and my heart physically aches when he does. I hold him close to my body and kiss all down his jaw and neck. His hands are running along the back of my head and my neck, carefully caressing the skin there. Gerard breathes heavy when I try nipping at his skin. More than anything, I want to mark up the warm, pale skin on his neck. So I do. I lick and suck on one spot while he squirms and gasps. When I pull away, he’s all flushed and shy. I giggle and brush some hair out of his face.

            “You are so pretty,” I tell him and he looks downward.

            “You too,” he says to his hands and I fight the urge to giggle. Maybe some stuff hasn’t changed from high school at all.

            “I’m so tired,” I say, and I drag him into the bedroom. Gerard managed to buy an actual bed, though he’s still not responsible enough to make it. I pull off my jeans and smack his butt playfully when he moves to do the same thing. It’s hilarious, of course, because Gerard freezes for three whole seconds before going on. Finally, we cautiously nestle up together in bed, Gerard pressed against my back. He kisses my neck once and murmurs a ‘goodnight’.

            “Night,” I breathe and fall into a state of blackness.

***

            I see Gerard two days later. I call him and he sounds awful tired, but when I ask him about it, he brushes it off as a school project. When I actually get there, he’s sketching furiously, chain smoking, and dumping the ashes in a cup of coffee long forgotten.

            “Hey, Gee. You look half dead,” I say. He really does. Gerard’s not really gaunt like Mikey, but the longer he stays awake, the more resemblance you can see between the two. He’s got pretty dark circles underneath his eyes an awed yet vacant expression like he’s on a really bad acid trip. He sort of shakes his head at me, so I go up behind him and wrap my arms around his waist. Gerard stops immediately. “Just how I like my boys,” I say into his ear.

            “So the other night wasn’t just – “ Gerard starts but it’s around that time that I really can’t take it anymore

            “No. Now shut up,” I groan and pull him close. I spent the past two days thinking about Gerard’s mouth, his hands, how he sounds when he gasps my name. All I could think about was making him do it again. We actually make it to the bedroom without any sort of agreement. But when we get in there, Gerard shyly sits on the edge of the bed. He looks like he’s about to say something stupid, so I silence him with another deep kiss. I’ve never felt a kiss like his. It goes to every part of me, to the pit of my stomach and to my dick and to my chest so it feels like it might cave in. Gerard’s kisses terrify me but I can’t help wanting more.

            “I’m going to do a strip tease now,” I say, following yet another one of my usually terrible impulses. Gerard giggles and covers his eyes. I move up close to him, straddling his thighs and take away his eyes. Gerard is still grinning but his eyes are darker and kind of needy. He doesn’t need to tell me twice before I’m stripping off my shirt, deliberately running my hands along my stomach and sides and stretching my arms up, burying my head into my shoulder. I internally smile as Gerard sighs through a smile.

            “No touching,” I say with a smile when he tries to pull me close. Then I get up to slide my jeans down, slinking down and running my hands first down the fronts of my thighs. In a daring, yet ultimately ridiculous move, I shake my ass a bit at him, and Gerard falls backward onto the bed laughing. Finally, I slip off my underwear and climb into his lap, smirking, leaving myself completely naked and vulnerable in front of him in the mid afternoon sunlight coming through the window.

            “Now you,” I say. Never breaking eye contact, I rest a palm on his chest; press him firmly to the bed. With my other hand, I undo his zipper and tease my hands inside his boxers. We both gasp when I get my hand around him, ever so slightly stroking his hard on. Gerard’s chest is rising and falling erratically. He’s practically writhing beneath me already. I can’t believe I’ve never seen Gerard like this. He’s perfect. I dip my head forward and get his t-shirt balled in one hand. Understanding, he lifts his arms up and helps me tear off his shirt.

            “Just like that?” I ask, stroking him gently. Gerard groans unceremoniously but still grins beneath me.

            “More, come on, more.”

            “I want to see every inch of you,” I murmur in his ear, tracing the hickey I made a few days ago. From there, I lick and kiss my way across his chest, sucking on his nipples and nuzzling his hipbones. I love every bit of Gerard’s body already.

            “Frank,” he says and pulls my head up with both of his hands. “I want you to fuck me.” If there was one thing that I wasn’t expecting, it was that. I’ve never fucked a guy the first time we have sex but… this is different somehow. This is Gerard. I want to be close to him like that. I kiss him, softer now and reach my hand on his chest to his hair.

            “Of course,” I whisper. Gerard eagerly rolls over to his bed stand and pulls out condoms and lube. He fumbles a little with both of them but manages to slick me up and leave in a couple firm strokes for good measure. I hardly finger him at all before he’s rutting fiercely against me and demanding more. I had always suspected that Gerard likes it rough, and the whole thing just makes him sexier.

            “I can’t believe you like this,” I say as I position myself by his ass. “I want you like this all the time.” I say it more to myself as I push in, but Gerard gasps all the same, right in time with me.

            As soon as I’m in, I start softly pressing in and out of him. I can’t help myself. Gerard doesn’t seem to mind though. His hands ball up around the sheets immediately. After that, it’s Gerard who does most of the talking. He pulls himself up for tight kisses then whispers things in my ears like, “Fuck Frankie, keep doing that, right there!” He reaches a hand between us to caress me, my shoulders and chest and arms. The combination of his tight heat around me and wandering hands is enough to make me dizzy. The longer we’re at it, the faster we both move. Suddenly, Gerard pulls us off the bed.

            “What are you – “ I ask but Gerard grins a sweaty grin and splays himself against the wall.

            I take his nonverbal cue without a second thought. I pin both his hands above us and push back into him again, both of us moaning shamelessly. I press my hands against his ass, squeezing and feeling the muscles as they move when he shifts underneath me and swears carelessly. I drag my nails experimentally down his back, leaving three parallel trails of angry red lines and Gerard bucks backwards even more ferociously.

            “Touch me, Frank,” he groans. Our rhythm falters as I reach around Gerard and jerk him off until he’s practically spewing nonsense and spilling come all over my hand and his thighs. I’m following soon after, squeezing shut my eyes so that lights dance before my eyes and all I can feel around me is Gerard, Gerard, Gerard.

            I pull out of him and he staggers backwards, pulling me down onto the bed.

            “Man, I have not been fucked like that in…”

            “Forever,” I agree. I pull on his boxers and pull him up.

            “I’m starving!” I say because there is nothing better than instant soup after sex. Walking the familiar route to his mini kitchen, I call back to Gerard. “You still have those two minute Udon noodle things, right?” He calls something that sounds like ‘cupboard’ back to me, and in no time I have our deliciously lazy meal in the microwave. Finally, Gerard comes out wearing my boxers and a t-shirt. As I’m getting bowls for us (we must remain at least somewhat civilized), Gerard speaks.

            “So can this not be like a one time thing?” he asks softly. I saunter over to him and reach my hands under his shirt, stroking his stomach and sides.

            “You fuck me like that, it better not be a one time thing,” I smile.

            “Oh, okay,” Gerard says back, and I go over to sip my noodles. There’s a nice comfortable silence, a kind that’s specific to Gerard. I’m not sure how to explain it, but it’s both peaceful and chaotic at the same time. Finally, I get up the courage to speak.

            “So you know, next Saturday is a Rocky Horror night at the Aquarius,” I say trying to be casual, talking about the tiny movie theater near his apartment.

            Gerard chimes in excitedly with, “A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away God said, ‘Let there be lips! And there were. And they were good.”

            “Yes they were,” I agree and kiss Gerard over the table. I mean it only to be a quick kiss but Gerard has such a hungry, sweet mouth but I can’t help stroking the side of his face and sighing into the kiss. I manage to tear myself away, and Gerard puts up a fake pout.

            “And I was thinking you might want to go with me. And after we can find a restaurant that’s open after hours and make out in your car until the sun rises then go back to my place and sleep halfway into the afternoon. But that’s just a rough idea.”

            “Are you asking me out on a date?” Gerard asks, probably just to be an ass.

            “I think I am, if you want to give it a shot,” I answer. Gerard rests his chin on his palm and tries to use his fingers to cover up his smile, but I know it’s there.

            “Okay,” he says.

            “Okay,” I say.

***

            As it turns out, we never actually make it to my apartment after Rocky Horror. I went as Brad, thinking that going as Columbia might be just a little too kinky for a first date. Gerard doesn’t seem to have that same train of thought. Instead, Gerard went all out as Doctor Frank n Furter (“I got the garters from Cindy,” he confessed). We manage to keep our hands off of each other during the show, Gerard being the kind that loves to sing along and throw toast and whatnot. By the time we find a 24-hour diner to eat in though, we’re both revved up and ready to go. It’s when Gerard has me bent backwards over the table that the manager says, “Okay, you two, get out.” Gerard cackled the whole way as we run back to his car. And that brings us here, rutting desperately against each other in the backseat of his car.

            “Fuck, this is so dirty,” I moan. Gerard looks fucking amazing in garters and so filthy with his mouth open in a silent moan of ecstasy, lipstick smeared across the corner of his mouth.

            “You’re – ugh right there yeah – telling me,” Gerard answers and grabs a fistful of my hair. That just about does it for me, making me shove my hands down my pants and jerk myself off until I’m coming so fast, I don’t know what hit me. Gerard keeps humping my leg and clutching onto me, filthy sounds spilling from his mouth. Finally, his teeth sink into my neck and we both cry out as he comes too.

            “You’re so hot, you know that?” I tell him. Gerard, oddly self-conscious after what we’d just done, looks downward. I lift up his chin. “So beautiful,” I say, taking in his completely wrecked appearance – hair sticking out everywhere, smudged eyeliner, faded lipstick, and come stained skirt – before kissing him deeply. “When we get to my house, I’m gonna fuck you properly.”

            And suddenly, a week has gone by in a flash of dangerously roaming hands, cigarettes, shamelessly loud orgasms, and instant noodles. In this time, we manage to fuck in almost every room of Gerard’s tiny apartment: bent over the couch, blowjobs in the shower, on the kitchen floor, and once on his fire escape at 3 am. The whole time, adrenaline is pounding through our veins as we explored the corners of each other, the facets and details in our bodies. I learned how Gerard loved when I changed things around unexpectedly and how fucking _flexible_ he was. I wanted to stay there forever, dancing in our underwear to David Bowie and telling each other secrets. I love this: getting caught up in another person, the whirlwind that is the first weeks of a romance. But… this is so much better. I mean it’s Gerard. The guy that had me sexually confused basically all throughout high school. The guy who kept blankets at cemeteries. The guy who stole me cassette tapes and taught me how to secretly smoke cigarettes in my bathroom with the shower on so the smoke floated into the vents. It’s crazy, lonely, perfect Gerard.


	3. Chapter 3

["Memories" - Panic at the Disco](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrihioC_LXg)

 

April 23rd, present

            “I saw your new comic,” Frank says, nursing his second cup of coffee. We’re back in the coffee shop, and the baristas keep giving us funny looks. When I really think about it, we _should_ have parted ways a while back. If he had just been a casual friend, we wouldn’t be here.

            “Really?” I ask. I wonder if he spent times in the comic book stores specifically searching for my work. Even if he didn’t, I feel stutteringly proud.

            “Yeah. Killjoys, huh? That was something else.”

            “What’d you think of it?” I ask.

            “Why do you care?” There it is again. That biting isolationism that I caused.

            “Because I care what you think,” I sigh. Sometimes, Frank can make you feel very small.

            “Sorry,” he says. “I mean, I actually did like it a lot. The funny thing was, you know, all the colors and shit, you expect it to be really happy, but it was actually really dark. There was just more… vibrancy. Intensity, I guess. Like that lead guy, Party Poison. It was all about running away but wherever he went, he never got happy.”

            “Yeah. I mean, he kept running but he never really escaped what he was running from.”

            “And what was that?”

            “A lot of things, I guess. When I went around the country, speaking and doing signings and stuff, all the fans would tell me how they related to him and, you know, realizing when to _stop_ running. It was so fucking surreal.”

            “And Fun Ghoul?” Frank asks.

            “Yeah! As soon as I went on tour everyone was talking about him and I never realized! But, I mean, _of course_ Party Poison was in love with him. Wasn’t it so obvious? But yeah I think it was like this subconscious decision and all the fans are talking about what a great couple they are. Anyways, I might write another series about him and what happened to him but I don’t know. It might be… sad.”

            “Why?” Frank is leaning across the table, resting the side of his face on his hand and watching Gerard with sleepy eyes.

            “Like, you don’t come out of something like that okay. Like I hope Fun Ghoul turned out alright but that just doesn’t seem realistic.”

            “Fuck realistic,” Frank says.

            “Really?” I ask.

            “Yeah. No one wants to read about their own sick sad lives reprinted in pretty colors. What would Fun Ghoul do?”

            “I don’t know. He’s the only character that could ever surprise me.” Frank barely smiles but looks down a little too quickly. He doesn’t continue the conversation.

            “So,” I say, plastering the all too familiar fake smile on my face once again. “I’m sure something exciting happened to you in five years.” We both wince at the sound – _five years_ , it could’ve been an eternity – exactly half the time we had been together.

            “No.” An uncomfortable silence slips in between us.

            “Frank…” I try but he cuts me off.

            “I don’t want to hear it.”

            “Fine.” The barista trips over a chair and stares intently. I look away pretty quickly but I know Frank’s staring her down. The girl clears her throat and scurries behind the counter.

            “I think she and her friends are watching us,” Frank glares. I can’t help it but I giggle. Instead of turning to me with an equally sharp glower, Frank is grinning with me too. I swear he’ll be the death of me.


	4. Chapter 4

["Such Great Heights" - The Postal Service](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXEq7WiINa4)

 

March 5th, 2004

            “Gerard! Get your ass in here!” Frank drops the bags he is carrying and takes the whole place in. The ceilings are high and the wide paneled windows flood the empty room with white-yellow light. “It’s _perfect_ ,” he sighs.

            I stagger through the door under the weight of a few exceptionally heavy boxes, but the sight of Frank grinning in the magical light of the room makes me pause, entirely forgetting my annoyance and aching limbs. Frank has his arms out like he is trying to give the whole world a hug and his eyes are shut tight. I drop the boxes I am carrying and make my way behind Frank, wrapping my arms tight around his waist. Without saying anything, I bury his face into Frank’s neck and hum around his slightly damp skin. Suddenly, however, Frank pulls away and began unpacking the boxes.

            “Frankie?” I ask. “What’s wrong?”

            “It’s just that it’s so far away. What am I gonna do now that you’re so far away?” I grin to myself and take Frank’s hands in mine.

            “Well, I was hoping that… if you want to… you might move in with me?” I ask. In the moments that it takes for his face to shift between emotions, I think of a conversation I had with Mikey the first time I had told him that Frank and I were together.

 

_“Frank? Really?” Mikey asked._

_“Yeah, what’s wrong with that?” I retorted._

_“I don’t know. Like… maybe in high school but now? You guys are so different.” I pondered that one for a second. Sure, we were different, but I would never want to date myself. I mean, I was screwy and I didn’t always know how to say what I meant but I wanted everyone to be totally honest with me otherwise I would get confused and shut them out. And Frank always said exactly what he meant, even though some days he would get so excited about everything that he terrified me a little. He never really stayed in one place at all, burning hot like an exploding star, always. It wasn’t like me at all and I was glad. Maybe we balanced each other out, me and him._

_“Mikes, there are like sides of him that I’ve never even seen before, though. I don’t know how to explain it to you. He’s so caring and tender and funny.” I sighed into the telephone like a sick puppy and didn’t stop even when I could feel Mikey telepathically judging me._

_“I don’t know, Gerard. Are you sure that you two are right for each other?”_

_“Jesus fuck, Mikey. What makes you so sure that I shouldn’t date Frank?” I sat down on the kitchen floor to fully express my indignation, wrapping the telephone chord around my fingers until they turned white._

_“Well… Frank’s just sensitive, you know?”_

_“Yeah…”_

_“You say something or you touch him too long and he’ll fall half in love with you. It happens to him a hundred times over and over again.” Mikey kept talking really fast, so I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. “He’s one of those – what do you call them – hopeless romantics. And Gerard, hate to break it to you babe, but you’re just hopeless.” I paused for a very long time._

_“I don’t agree with you,” I said._

_“Just promise to pay attention to him and not just get wrapped up in yourself.” I stood up and let the chord go, feeling my fingertips throb as the blood returned to them._

_“Okay, Mikey.”_

_“Cool. Now, go get laid or whatever.”_

_“Bye Mikey.”_

_“Bye Gerard.” It wasn’t that Mikey was trying to be mean. I knew that. My brother just cared a lot and sometimes he had a funny way of showing it. I knew that because I was also like that, and I pissed Mikey off equally with blunt relationship advice. Still, I knew not to disregard what Mikey had said as common brotherly worry. Whatever he meant, it was true._

            “You want me to move in,” Frank says grinning. I shift under my lover’s playful gaze.

            “You know, it might be nice to, um, have you around and, I mean, we spend so much time, like, with each other already. Like you practically live at my place, and stuff, so I was thinking it might just be, uhh, a smart move like… financially…”

            “Financially, huh?” Frank asks sliding his arms around my shoulders and taunting me with his eyes.

            “Yeah and Ikindofloveyouso…” I stutter.

            “What?” Frank asks, breaking from closing in on me having had me almost against the wall and hands flat against my chest. I clear my throat.

            “Nothing.” Frank sticks his tongue in his cheek and smiles. I kiss him before he has the opportunity to push me and Frank gives in easily, melting under my hands. Frank pecks my lips playfully once, twice, three times before pulling back. I catch him around the waist though and hold him in place. I kiss his forehead slowly then tip his head back with one hand on his neck and the other falling to his hip. Then he kisses me deep but soft, unlike any other kiss we had ever shared. I feel like I am kissing Frank for the first time all over again, my stomach jumping around in exhilaration and fear like Charlie from the chocolate factory, “I’ve got a golden ticket! I’ve got a golden ticket!” I want to pull my boyfriend as close as I can get then closer, bury myself within him and his scent and his soft hair and all those small dips in his body, yielding under my fingers. Frank breaks apart at last but only to stick his fingers underneath my shirt, touching each newly exposed spot of skin as he undoes the buttons. After all the buttons are undone, I thread our hands together, Frank’s other one left to stroke my side while his mouth remembers each goose bump on my skin. We are both already panting. Frank uses both hands to push away my shirt and stroke my hair, and he kisses my face, my nose, my eyelids, my jaw, and my mouth.

            We know this dance by now. I can’t imagine how I got along kissing anyone else but him, wrapping my body around anyone’s but his. It’s not clumsy or even simple. Frank’s so tender with me. He pushes my legs open and slips inside my soul almost seamlessly, and I realize that he has been there all along. We move together slowly, lying on the floor, wanting to take our time and make it last. There are almost no words except for the occasional whispered “there” and “don’t stop”. If there is a way for us to get closer, I couldn’t think of it and I couldn’t want anything more. My chin locked over his shoulder and nose nestled in his neck. There is sweat spreading below his jaw. I engulfed myself in every sensation: his smell like nuts and apricot shampoo; the wooden floor pressed against my back; his fingertips sunk into my sides; Frank’s obscene eyes and gaping mouth and tiny noises in the back of his throat kept me grounded. This was real. I was happy.

***

April 23th, present

 

            “I wrote a book,” Frank blurts out.

            “What?”

            “You asked what I did in five years and I said nothing but that was a lie because I wrote a book.”

            “What’s it about?”

            “I don’t want to talk about it.” He looks out the window. The sky is paling.

            “Oh. Then why’d you even tell me?”

            “I don’t know,” he bit. I feel a slightly familiar twinge of annoyance resurface after being buried for years.

            “Then why’d you even bring it up?”

            “I just… I just wanted to say.” He glares at me.

            “Well just saying doesn’t do any good.”

            “Yeah, you don’t think I know that? Everything’s my fault,” he groaned.

            “I didn’t say that,” I protest.

            “You might as well have. I _know you,_ Gerard. You’re always doing that condescending shit.”

            “God, you always do this!” I groan, pressing a hand to my forehead. “Just as soon as things get good you have to go call me ‘condescending’.”

            “Well you _are_ condescending!” he said, too loudly. I shield myself with my hand, hoping desperately that no one in the café was watching us.

            “Jesus, don’t yell. People are probably looking,” I grit through my teeth.

            “Do you think I give a shit if people are looking?” Frank continued at the same volume. I cover my face with both my hands.

            “I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry, just stop yelling.”

            “Sorry for what?” he asks.

            “Sorry for whatever you want me to be, I don’t know. All I do is fuck things up, right?” Frank stares at me incredulously. He gets up so suddenly then that the chair topples over.

            “I’m leaving,” he says and grabs his bag.

            “You haven’t changed at all,” I call after him. Frank pauses in front of the door. I think he’s having an internal debate with himself about whether he should answer. I seize the opportunity and walk up behind him, but he doesn’t turn around. Carefully, I try to rest my hand on his shoulder, but he shrugs me off violently.

            “Please don’t pull away from me, not this time,” I whisper. He spins around suddenly and I’m afraid for a moment that he might hit me. I cringe backward, more ashamed of myself than I have ever been but also feeling like I can’t stop.

            “Pulling away?” he says, and it’s the final straw. Frank pushes through the doorway and steps into the alley where we smoked together. If only for a second, I watch him and it feels like any bit of selfish hope I had gained that day floods into the stratosphere. I run out after him.

            “ _You_ left _me_! Without a word of where you were going! You made me think that you still cared and then you _left,_ like I was nothing.” It was Frank’s turn to bury his head in his hands. “You want to know how the last five years were?” He kicks the dilapidated orange couch. “Fuck!” he yells, and his face is red and screwed up in the effort not to cry.

            “Do you think there was a single day that went by in California that I didn’t want to come back here?” I ask.

            “Of course there were, Gerard! You fell out of love, remember? But it doesn’t fucking matter now. I can’t stay hung up on things that happened years ago!”

            “Neither can I.”

            “Then why are we still here?”

            “I just… give me a second, Frank.” Memories come flooding back.


	5. Chapter 5

[ "Don't Go" - Bring Me the Horizon ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NFzDSudw10)

["The Bed Song" - Amanda Palmer & the Grand Theft Orchestra ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sW4dwXXX7Q)

["Hollow Body" - Pity Sex](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wrEDXHXs4g)

 

February 20th, 2007

 

            “God, Frank! You make me fucking _crazy_ , you know that?” I yell. I can’t stop moving around the room, putting coffee tables and sketches of Frank’s collarbones and couches between us. I know if he gets close enough to wrap his arms around me, close enough for me to smell the dried rain on his skin, it’ll all be over. But not this time. “I can’t eat because of you! I can’t eat or sleep or walk down the fucking street! All I can think about is you, your dick up another man’s ass or some drunk guy wielding a broken beer bottle at your face because you picked another goddamn fight. You’re driving me _insane._ ” I’m too drunk for this. I know that I’ll end up saying something that I regret. I can’t think straight and all that’s left for me to say is the truth.

            “ _I’m_ driving you insane?” Frank yells back, waving his hands wildly. “You’re fucking kidding me. _I’m_ driving _you_ insane? Fuck you, Gerard! Fuck. You!” Frank hurls his words at me. He’s so livid that he can barely form a sentence, and my eyes are prickling with oncoming tears. He grabs the first thing he can find, a small cushion, and hurls it across the room. It hits me square in the chest. My fingers instinctively clutch it close and I stagger backwards a few steps in shock. Frank is predatory now and takes my moment of weakness to yell some more. “You’re suffocating me! I’m so tired of your shit! You fucking kill me! I can’t even remember what it was like to think right.”

            “I’m fucking _worried_ about you, asshole! Excuse me for fucking caring about you and looking out for you and worrying for you when all you want is a warm body to fuck and make you feel special!” I’m yanking on fistfuls of my hair. This is all wrong. I don’t want to be yelling at Frank. I really don’t. I want to be kissing him softly and playing with his hair, but I know that if I was doing that, all I would want to do is yell at him.

            “No fucking way do you get to say that I’m the selfish one! All you ever do is stay home to drink and mope! You know what? You’re 30 fucking years old. Get over yourself!” Frank grabs a fistful of something off of the coffee table. At first I don’t know what it is, but then I see him crumpling my drawings and throw them aside.

            “Oh yeah? It’s better than you, still trying to be a fucking rockstar, playing shows on Thursday nights at bars? I’m so fucking tired of bailing out of jail because you beat the shit out of some frat guy yelling at you!”

            “That was one time!”

            “Frank, I’m on a first name basis with half the police station.”

            “Fuck you,” Frank snarls. I can tell he’s hurt. I know every inch of him by now, every small quirk in his body that means something’s wrong. It makes both of us even angrier. I need to crawl out of my body I’m so mad and sad and just fucking tired.

            “Sometimes I don’t even think you care anymore,” I say to my feet.

            “Fuck! I try so fucking hard and but you won’t let me in. You never talk to me anymore. We don’t even have sex! I don’t know what you want,” Frank shouts back.

            “God fucking – what the hell is your problem?” I yell, striding right up to him and shoving him in the chest. I know it’s stupid to be picking a fight with Frank especially when I can’t even walk straight, but I’m not thinking anymore. I can’t fucking think. Frank staggers backwards, shocked at my physical contact. I’m not a violent person. I’ve never been a violent person. Usually it’s Frank that pushes or punches and never gets shunted to the side.

            “What the hell if _your_ problem?” he says, recovering and shoving me right back.

            “Don’t fucking touch me!” I yell at push him harder.

            “Dickhead,” he snarls and shoves me so I fall over and hit my head on the arm of the sofa. The back of my head throbbing with pain, I feel my eyes start to prickle. I hate when that happens. Whenever I get so mad that I can’t even form words. When the only thing I can do is cry. I slam my fist onto the ground and hurl a vague insult at Frank. All he’s doing is just standing there, ready to pounce like an animal. He almost looks like a stranger to me.

            “Fuck! I don’t want to fight all the goddamn time!” I say, covering my face with my hands and squeezing my eyes tight so I can’t see Frank’s face. “All we ever fucking do is fight. I don’t know what to do anymore! You make me so fucking confused about everything! You love me then you can’t stand to be in the same room as me. You fuck me then you won’t even look me in the goddamn eye. I don’t know if I can do this anymore!” There are definite tears in my eyes now, a few hot ones spilling over onto my cheeks but I wipe then away quickly. Finally, I open my eyes to see Frank’s reaction.

            “It’s just – I don’t know! I’ve never done this before!” he shouts back at me.

            “Come on. We are grown fucking adults and you’re telling me that you can’t commit?” My breath is ragged and I’m sweating. Despite myself, there’s a voice in the back of my head asking me why I’m not good enough for him.

            “It’s not that I can’t commit!”

            “Then what is it? _What is it_?” Frank is silent. I get to my feet and stare straight into his face. Now I know he looks like a stranger. His features are swimming through the film of the alcohol in my blood and the tears in my eyes.

            “If you hate me so much, then fucking leave,” Frank growled. His face is pure insanity, not the feral kid but the silent and deadly kind.

            “I don’t ha – “

            “Fucking go! If you don’t want to be here then why don’t you just leave? What’s keeping you? I don’t care! I don’t give two shits what you do!” I’m paralyzed. Suddenly, I’m exhausted. I don’t think I could yell any more even if I wanted to. All I can think about is… the coffee machine. I spent all that money on it, and I’m not even going to have it when I leave. It takes me a moment to realize that I’m thinking ‘when’ and not ‘if’. It feels like the whole room is falling into pieces and I’m just… not.

            I walk to the bedroom, lock the door. Frank’s right behind me and pounds on the door with his fists.

            “I didn’t mean that Gerard! I’m sorry! Please come out!” It’s only inside our bedroom that I realize it’s raining. How appropriate. As a teenager, I’d always imagine myself running out into the rain dramatically. It didn’t matter what I was leaving behind. Now, I realize how wrong I was. I’ll never watch the rain without you, Frank.

            “Gerard! Don’t be a dick. I’m sorry!” He pounds so heavily on the door, I’m sure he’s going to splinter the wood. I wipe the tears coming fast down my face as I collect my belongings. Clothes, sketches, pictures, and whatever else I can find. Through it all, I hear Frank’s shouting and the rain outside slowly turning to hail.

            At some point the home phone rings. Frank’s pounding stops as he answers it. His voice is thick when he answers it. “Yes hello, Mr. Sampson,” he says. He must have covered the phone because he’s knocking more softly on the door and saying, “Gerard, please. Come out of there. No, no, Mr. Sampson. Everything’s fine. I’m sorry about the noise. Goddamnit! Open up. I just want to talk. You know I say stupid things when I’m mad. I’m sorry, yes. I’m still here. Actually sir, I have to go. Thank you for the concern. No, everything is all right. Yes, you too. Goodbye.” I’m still gathering my things together in a suitcase. It’s dimly lit, but I know this room like the back of my hand from all the times Frank and I have stumbled here together, half naked and completely entwined in each other.

            “Gerard?” Frank asks. He’s sniffling on the other side of the door, no longer yelling and pounding. I imagine him sitting on the floor, head resting against the white wooden framing. “Gee?” he asks again, sweetly. He sounds like himself back in college at four in the morning, vulnerable and beautiful. “Please listen.”

            I nod, unconsciously pressed up against the door, my suitcase completely packed, but then of course I realize that he can’t see me.

            “Fine.” Still, I already know nothing he can say will make things better.

            “I… I can change. I’ll clean up my act and get a steady job. I can change!”

            “But you won’t. I’ve heard those words a hundred times before. You say it every time.” Frank doesn’t argue.

            “I just… can’t we just be happy?” he says and I press closer to the door.

            “If only we knew how…” I say and press my palm to the wood, hoping that I could feel him through the door. Even now, in my anguish and fear, I love him. In my imagination, he puts his hand up against mine through the door and we share a long breath.

            “Please come out of there,” he sighs. I’ve cried myself out completely and now it’s his turn to cry. Frank heaves these deep breaths in and out. I always forget how small he is. So very small.

            Suddenly, I’m hit with images from our doomed future. We don’t fight or sleep on the edge of the bed. I grow old in his arms. His hair looks nice with salt and pepper colors in it, but he dyes it black anyways. When our friends have parties, we still bring dessert that we bought from Safeway because we forgot to make something at the last minute. Maybe we’d finally get married. Even adopt a little girl with red hair. We pose together for stupid pictures on family vacations. Frank would have been a wonderful father. I could almost laugh. It seems so far away, so unlikely.

            “I think maybe we met at the wrong time. I know too much about you. Things could have gone so differently,” I say. When Frank doesn’t reply, I pull on my jacket and place my hand on the doorknob. “I’m coming out now, okay?” I hear him shuffle away from the door, sniffling. When I open it, he’s wiped his red eyes in a vain attempt to look like he hadn’t been crying. He looks at the suitcase behind me and his façade falls apart.

            “No! Please. I promise, we’ll figure things out,” he cries, new tears falling.

            “Not this time, Frank.” I try to walk by him but he grabs at my wrists.

            “Please! Don’t do this. Anything, Gerard. I’ll do anything!” he says.

            “You know that things have changed. You don’t give a fuck if I stay, and I don’t give a fuck if I leave. There’s nothing we can do to change that.” I struggle out of his grip and move to the door. Frank follows me out and down the stairs.

            “Seven years! What the fuck did these seven years mean to you?” I want to turn around and tell him ‘everything’ that they meant everything, but I know. This time I have to go for good.

            “Gerard!” he shouts at me as I leave through the front door, dropping my key on the floor on my way out. The hail has melted into rain again and there are piles of slush lining the sidewalk. “My whole life! I’ve known you my whole life! Please, don’t go,” Frank yells over the pounding rain. In a matter of seconds, I’m soaked through to the skin. “I need you! You save me from myself! When no one else cared, you cared!”

            “Why couldn’t you tell me that before I’m walking out of our apartment?” I shout back at him. This time, Frank runs right out into the storm towards me.

            “I… I need you.” I think of Frank loosing his job and staying on the couch for weeks on end, refusing to talk to me for days. I think about huddling together under a blanket and watching art house movies from the ‘30s. I think about all the horrible things he’s called me. I think about making love to him on the kitchen floor. I think about him shoving me away when I kiss him. I’m so tired of thinking about it all.

            “Goodbye, Frank Iero,” I say and turn away once and for all.

            “Don’t go! Please, don’t go! Don’t leave me! Gerard!” His voice cracks as he cries out after me. I think I’ve been gone for a long time.

 

March 2nd, 2007

 

            I don’t even have to open the door to know that it’s Gerard and that he’s drunk. You know how when you know someone for long enough you unconsciously memorize those things about them, like what their footsteps sound like around the house. Well, those two uneven knocks on our apartment door are enough for me to know for sure. At first in my bleary, early morning mind, I forget that we’re not in our mid-twenties when he’d drown his madness in liquor. I feel terrified and ready to pull him into the shower and tuck him into the bed like the countless hours we spent getting sober. It took me a long time to admit to myself that even though he was by my side, I was always feeling alone.

            I crack open the door and see him, head hanging low.

            “Frank?” he whispers. “Frankie?”

            “What the _fuck_ do you want, Gerard?”

            “I want to pretend.”

            “… You can’t seriously expect me to listen to your shit right now.” I snap the door shut.

            “Frankie,” he sighs. I squeeze my eyes shut and press my forehead against the door. _Don’t let him in, don’t let him in, you good for nothing fucker. No he’s the good for nothing fucker and you shouldn’t let him in. Don’t let him in._

            “Just for tonight, can we please pretend?” he croons. I stare through the peephole, and he looks like he’s falling apart at the foundations. I yank open the door and both he and the light from the hallway stumble inside. “In the morning, we’ll talk about everything. I’ll listen this time. I’ll be everything I couldn’t be. I will still love you… if you want me.”

            He tips my head back and stares at me, his disquieting eyes giving me a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. A shaky breath leaves my lips as he tilts his head to the side and leans forward. I step back. I won’t let him touch me. My heart is pounding slow and steady like a bass drum, like thunder. Deafening. Gerard averts his gaze to his feet. He looks like he’s searching for something in this apartment, in me, that’s more than forgiveness. I want to find it with him, even it means tearing each other apart. My mind is entirely blank as I reach forward hesitantly. When I touch his cheek, his skin is warm and soft. He presses his own hand on top of mine, and there’s a jolt in my chest. We both step forward until our faces are inches apart. I lean forward. He leans backward ever so slightly. We’re caught in a power struggle, but it’s not a fight for control. No, it’s a stand off to show who is the most sorry, the most willing, how far the other would torture themselves just to prove their love.

            Gerard slowly rests his forehead against my own so I’m trapped staring up at him. My hand is still on his cheek. I open my mouth to say something but the only thing I can muster is a pathetic, silent hiccup. He pulls our hands downward and I take my chance. With my other hand, I trail my fingers along his neck, nervous breath following. I’ve always loved his neck: the slight protuberance of his Adam’s apple, the lines and crevices that are revealed when he tilts his head a certain way, and the tiny goose bumps that rise at the slightest touch. Gerard squeezes my hand, and the gesture feels bittersweet.

            Then, he lightly pushes his hand on my chest, and I instinctively shove it away. He grabs my shoulders with the same intensity. We both freeze. To the thudding in our chests, he moves back, letting me go. His expression melts before me until his eyes are dark and excruciating. Gerard looks possessed. He looks lustful but penitent. Submissive. Ashamed. And no words could ever express how I feel just then.

            Invigorated with that despairing sensuality, Gerard sinks down to his knees right in front of me, eyes never leaving mine.

            “Do you want this?” he asks softly. I nod, feeling the flush rise from my belly to my chest to my face. We both refuse to break eye contact, even when his fingers are sliding my boxers down. He kisses the insides of my thighs, hands gripping my hips. He licks the length of my hipbone, and I can feel myself getting hard as he touches me. My stomach is doing fucking acrobatics before he presses two fingers against the back of my knee and takes my cock into his mouth. I gasp loudly, the sound harsh against my ears because even I wasn’t expecting it, as if some part of me didn’t expect him to actually do it. The fact that he’s even here seems dreamlike and unreal. His mouth is watering as his head bobs up and down and so when he grabs the base of my cock, his hand is immediately slick and fast paced. My knees tremble.

            He gazes up at me, my hands tangled in my hair and focusing all my energy on trapping the moans my body is begging to make in my stomach. I want him to suffer in the silence, bruise his knees from begging. Gerard knows that he’s already lost. And the sick bastard loves it.

            Despite myself, I let my mouth fall open, still trying to strangle the waves of pure fucking lust but not when Gerard’s looking just like that, touching me just like that. I’m losing my head it’s so good. He seems to sense just how easily he can unravel me and hums proudly around me. My breath is ragged and broken. I reach my hands in his hair and pull, signaling him to pull off. I want this to last. When he stands up, he’s totally wrecked: his mouth is red, drool glistens on his chin, and he already has sex hair. He strips off his shirt and pants, and for what seems like forever all I can do is stare at fucking beautiful, crazy Gerard.

            “Fucking touch me,” he breathes. I feel something raw and animalistic rise in me. “Please,” he adds. I glare at him, pull my boxers up, then walk away. When I reach the bedroom door I turn and raise my eyebrows at him. I’m trying to be cool, to make him fight me. I wan to piss him off, to smack him, to make him smack me, to dissolve under his touch, I want to feel something – no, _anything_ – instead of the nothing that everything’s become. Gerard follows immediately.

            I turn away before I can look at his face – his stupid earnest face – and sit on the bed. The world pauses for a moment while we both remain where we are, and then my face screws up and I collapse into tears.

            “No, no, no, no, no, Frank, Frankie,” Gerard whispers and I feel him sit right beside me. I heave as hot tears fall down my cheeks. “Frankie, hey,” he says, and we both wrap our arms around each other. He kisses my neck soothingly and rubs my back under my shirt.

            “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you,” Gerard repeats over and over again, smoothing back my hair and kissing every inch of my face. I feel fucking ridiculous, having him kiss my tears away, but also right at home. He keeps repeating the phrase – _Iloveyouiloveyouiloveyouiloveyou_ – until the words sound like gibberish and the only truth is his movements. I hold him as close as I can and grab his face with both my hands. Our lips are hot and needy. I press him backwards until I’m straddling him on top of the mattress. The skin on skin contact is never enough. He yanks my shirt off; I scrape my nails down his back, but all I can think is closer closer closer. We rut against each other shamelessly, smelling of sweat and bed sheets and longing. We drag our hands against every crevice of each other. Each inch of our skin is the final nerve like we’re teenagers again, and soon we’re panting into each other’s mouths out of sheer ecstasy. We’re a mess of fingers, spit, and teeth. Gerard comes first in between my legs and on my thighs, gasping my name into my chest. My orgasm follows soon after, impatient and… fucking soul crushing; I feel like I could cry of joy or exasperation or just because I can. I don’t though because Gerard looks perfectly still and I want to savor it.

            We fall asleep, and I wake up an hour later to him staring softly somewhere below my collarbone.

            “I’m sorry,” he whispers, but before the words exit his mouth I capture them in a kiss, and we fuck properly, not some desperate struggle against the other and our own feelings.

            With the sweat drying on our skin and the color of the sky promising another fucking sunrise, Gerard speaks.

“We should get married,” Gerard murmurs, stroking my neck.

            “What are you talking about?” I ask, sitting up.

            “Let’s get married,” he says again, rising as well. The bed sheet falls from his shoulders and rests on our hips. He’s far more sober than he was when we started. This time Gerard is looking right at me. Right through me.

            “You can’t be – “

            “Tomorrow!” His eyes are lit with excitement. “We’ll drive down to city hall and have strangers be our witnesses. We’ll wear suits and everything. Then I’ll move back in and we’ll work things out together, I promise. Frankie, let’s do it!”

            I don’t have any idea what to say. It’s all so sudden. “I want to, Gerard but…”

            “I promise that things will be better. Please, Frank. Say that you’ll marry me. Just for tonight.” He grabs my hand. I missed the way that mine fit in his. I allow myself to imagine standing at an altar with my hand in his. How would the sealing kiss feel? I don’t think I would ever be able to get enough of it. We could call all our friends and tell them that we’re married then hang up real fast like it’s a prank call. But no. It’ll be so real.

            “I want you so much,” I groan and press my chest to his. He plays with my hair while I bury my face in his neck.

            “Me too.” Gerard kisses our entwined knuckles.

            “I missed you,” I whisper. It’s my biggest secret.

            “With all my heart.”

            “I want to fall asleep with you.”

            “Of course.”

            Gerard tips my face up and kisses me briefly. He guides us back down so we’re staring at the ceiling, trying to take in the hugeness of the moment. I’m going to marry him.

            “I want to wake up with you.”

            This time, Gerard says nothing. He just pets my face once more and turns out the light. I’m going to marry him.

***

            “You taught me that you can’t always get what you want.”

            “Frank…”

            “I was going to marry you! I was going to marry you, and you left! You left me in the morning and when I woke up, you weren’t there! I called _everyone_ , looked _everywhere._ And then I call Ray. Ray says, ‘He’s halfway to California. Going to live with Mikey and Alicia. Gee told us all last week. I thought you knew.’” I have to pause to gather my breath and thoughts, I’m that upset. “I thought… you knew.” I repeat. “You _lied_ to me! And I fucking _hated_ you! I hated you so much. You killed me.”

            “But you killed me first!” Gerard looks like he’s on the verge of tears. Not angry tears. Sad, empty tears from a sad, small man.

            I’m fucking seething. I can’t even look at Gerard’s stupid face looking all guilty. After he left, I was a mess. I stayed at James’s house until he got so fed up with me ranting about Gerard during the day and crying in the night that he kicked me out. That first week was the hardest week of my life. Our apartment was riddled with memories of Gerard. I couldn’t stay there.

            “I got over you,” I grit, squeezing my eyes shut. “I moved on. Why now? Why did you have to come back now?”

            Gerard runs a hand through his hair. He sits down on the abandoned couch in defeat at last.

            “I think maybe we met at the wrong time,” he says very slowly. “Maybe if I saw you for the first time today and asked you out to coffee or if I met you at Mikey’s going away party… things might have turned out… different.” I look at him, looking up at me for some sort of answer. I know every contour of his face, every expression, the way he looks when he holds buckets of laughter, and the curves of his neck when he’s afraid; I know his face better than I know my own.

            “I can’t imagine being me without you.” He’s a part of me. All my firsts and my lasts with him, the things I learned. The shit he helped me forget. Somehow, I became entwined with him. Cars roar behind us for minutes just to prove the vastness of the world we are caught in. Right when I move to leave, Gerard speaks.

            “Neither can I,” he says. And then something miraculous happens. He smiles. He smiles a gentle smile like he loves me again and, after a moment, I smile back. Somehow, it feels like something is mending itself. Like we’re learning to hold hands again.

 


	6. Chapter 6

["Stay Together for Kids" - blink-182](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nkv6sq0GChk)

 

September 10th, 1993

 

            The year 1993 was marked by three events to the residents of Belleville, New Jersey.

            It was the year Mikey Way inexplicably emerged from awkward adolescent fat and morphed into somewhat of an enigma, an object of fascination among his classmates who were convinced that he was actually an international crime lord after he was involved in a minor FBI confrontation. They actually busted him for bootlegging lesser-known Disney movies, but the rumors had already spread by then and there was no going back. Two weeks into the new semester, the school planned a flat out intervention for him, convinced that he was on heroin after he dropped 45 pounds over the summer. The incident launched Mikey further into suburban superstardom even though he was about as street tough as a stick of celery.

            The second event occurred earlier that spring when Matt "Otter" Pelisier jumped off the bridge over the local lake to impress a girl. He fractured his leg in three places, and the girl’s family quickly relocated after the incident, leaving Otter heartbroken for a whole week.

            Third, it was the year that Frank Iero and Gerard Way met.

            Years later, Pete would claim he had known all along. “It was obvious, wasn’t it? You just couldn’t deny it.” Everyone remembers it differently, but there were some parts of the story that always remained the same. They had seen each other briefly in the hallways at school or maybe through racks at the local record store, but the first time they officially met was Mikey’s 16th birthday. Gerard and his friends had managed to drag his little brother out to see a movie (Gerard knew better than to ask Mikey if he had any friends that he wanted to bring along. Mikey would always say the same thing, that he was fine without being bogged down by all those teenage jackasses anyways.) Neither boy had invited Frank; he seemingly dropped out of the sky and into their lives.

***

            A group of us stood under the overhang outside of the theater, passing around a cigarette and shoving each other playfully while sheets of rain pounded the streets.

            “Who are we waiting for?” Mikey asked a senior named Hambone.

            “My man, Frankie. The asshole’s probably saving kittens from trees or something,” Hambone said, shrugging. A minute or so later, the hunched silhouette of a boy appeared and almost smacked into me. The rain made it so anyone could hardly see five feet in front of themselves, and as a result the soaking wet boy barreled right into me without even knowing.

            “Sorry,” he said, eyes trained on the ground. His black hair, just getting long, was dripping water into his eyes and his white shirt was plastered against him, revealing the flesh beneath. He was shivering like a maniac but made no indication that it bothered him.

            “Frank! Excellent,” Hambone declared and the small pack of boys made their ways into the theater, leaving Frank and me in the back.

            “So…” I said. “Frank, right?”

            “Yeah.”

            “I’m Gerard.”

            “Right.”

            We were both quiet all the way from getting our tickets to sitting down in the stained chairs in the auditorium.

            “So you’re pretty quiet then? That’s cool. Mikey’s like that too, but we get along alright.”

            “No, it’s like.” Frank let out a small, frustrated sigh. “I’m not actually a quiet guy. I’m not usually, I don’t know, _like this._ I’m sort of off today, I guess.”

            “Oh okay. Did something happen?” I asked.

            “Like you give a shit.” Frank didn’t know so, but I did care. But, being eighteen and obscenely shy, I didn’t push the matter. Shaun offered me popcorn. Neither of us ate any. Frank muttered something that was more like an angry exhale than an actual sentence.

            “What?”

            “I said my parents are getting divorced, okay?” Frank gritted through his teeth.

            “Oh… I’m sorry.”

            “Why? It’s not your fucking fault. I don’t even care anyways. I’m just fucking glad that I don’t have to deal with their shit anymore.” I studied his face, but found nothing.

            “Do you always do that staring thing? It’s fucking creepy,” Frank said.

            “Do you always do that transparent disillusioned punk kid thing? It’s a fucking cliché,” I shot back.

            “Yeah well… fuck you,” Frank spat. We sat.

            “Why are the kids at school scared of you?” Frank asked.

            “The kids at school are scared of me?” I asked, genuinely surprised.

            “I guess, because no one bothers you. Plus your whole family is fucking weird. My mom always complains when she sees your mom at church.” I glared at him. Who was this little asshole that just appeared out of the goddamn rain?

            “My family isn’t weird. You and your family are probably just boring.” Frank had been called a lot of things over the years but never boring. It kind of stung.

            “You didn’t tell me why everyone’s scared of you.”

            “I don’t know, maybe people are just assholes. I got held back though so – “

            “You’re nineteen?” Frank gaped.

            “Eighteen. Nineteen in April.”

            “Holy fuck man, you’re old!” Frank exclaimed.

            “Yeah, yeah, like I don’t need to be reminded.”

            “Are things better now? Now that everyone’s afraid of you?”

            “They’re sort of the same? People aren’t afraid of me. They just leave me alone.” The lights go down.

            “I hate that,” Frank whisperd.

            “What?” Another one of my friends smacked me playfully upside the head.

            “You better not talk during the entire movie,” he said. I shoved him back.

            “Hate what?” I whispered back after a couple of seconds. Frank was silent as the opening credits flashed before them, changing his face blue then white the green then entirely obscured.

            “Being invisible.”

            I didn’t watch much of the movie that day. Instead of poorly choreographed fight scenes and popcorn, I thought of Frank locked in his room alone with headphones on blasting music so he wouldn’t have to deal with his parents in the next room. I imagined Frank teaching himself how to smoke without coughing outside the Salvation Army. It was kind of sad. I decided then that Frank wasn’t an asshole at all, despite the fact that he tried really hard to appear that way. I turned to tell him just that but stopped immediately. The light from the screen illuminated silent tear tracks on Frank’s cheeks, glistening in the shame of a movie theater, the only place where he could cry without anyone noticing. More than pity, more than sadness, a feeling of devotion overcame me when I saw Frank like that. This boy I had met an hour ago, rainwater still drying on his skin. I longed to stop the tears escaping from the corners of this boy’s eyes. So I did the only thing that I could think of. I took Frank’s hand in my own.

            Frank’s shocked eyes met mine. He could never imagine that such a simple gesture would move him that way. I looked away quickly but squeezed Frank’s hand in response. I didn’t quite know what I was trying to say to Frank, but whatever it was, I felt like this boy understood.

            As soon as the movie was over, we dropped hands before our friends could see. Frank stood up and stretched a little, jacket and shirt riding up. I shuffled my feet and averted my eyes downward. It felt weird to look at Frank at all, like we'd done something far dirtier than just hold hands.

            Frank coughed twice and it sounded thick and phlegmy. “Oh great,” he said to himself. “So… bye. Thanks, you know, for.” Frank gestured his hand inexpressively. “Just, yeah. Bye.” He scurried out of the theater. I turned to my friend Ray.

            “Who is that?” I asked.

            “Oh that’s Frank Iero. Started popping up at parties a little while ago. He’s got potential, man. Not too bad at guitar either. He can show up Neil, so.” I nodded absently. _Frank Iero,_ I thought. I felt something within me stir.


	7. Chapter 7

["Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" - Arcade Fire](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b_IHjWXbuM)

 

October 30th, 1993

 

            The greatest birthday I ever had wasn’t even on my birthday. And it was that Gerard Way’s entire damn fault. So what if I had totally fucking bawled in front of him the first time we met? I’m no pussy. Who needs a freaky friend who you can never go anywhere with because he’ll never leave the basement? Not me. Or at least that’s what I thought. Gerard Way has this way of getting inside your head and making you like him. I mean, don’t get me wrong. He’s totally fucked up. But he’s also pretty cool.

            I started seeing him everywhere I went after Mikey’s birthday. In the backs of classrooms, like he suddenly popped into existence, drawing comics and secretly listening to music. Or smoking in back alleys, he was there too. I probably stood next to him a hundred times, maybe even bummed a smoke and never thought twice about it. He’s really good at being invisible, but once you see him, you don’t forget him.

            Even though I kept seeing him everywhere, I didn’t really talk to him. That would be fucking embarrassing. Not because I thought I was too cool for him – like I’d ever be too cool for anyone – but more like I’d feel like an ass after probably ruining his brother’s birthday for him. But then a week after the movie incident, Gerard fucking Way called me. I didn’t even give him my number, but he called me anyways. Didn’t even say anything normal to me. We sort of talked about nothing for a while and then he said that this movie called _Blue Velvet_ was on TV and that I “fucking have to see this shit right now, it’s so fucked up”.

            And now it’s just a thing we do. I call him, or he calls me, and we just sort of talk to each other. I know, it should sound more eventful, but it’s hard to explain it really. Gerard Way makes no sense. He doesn’t even try to make sense. And that’s how I end up in a graveyard, staring down a plastic baggie of weed, still trying to make sense of him.

            “I’ve never smoked weed before,” I said. Gerard peeked up from the joint he was rolling, totally expressionless. He looked just like his brother all of a sudden. Then he grinned out of one side of his mouth and shrugged.

            “Okay,” he said crawling towards me. “Inhale like this and try to take as much into your lungs, kay?” He drew in a breath of the smoke, the creases around his eyes disappearing. “Here,” Gerard said and held the joint over to me. I took my first hit straight from his fingers, my eyes watering. The smoke filled my lungs until I choked and spluttered. Gerard laughed and patted my back.

            “That’s alright, it happens to everyone their first time. Plus this is the good kind, you know, for your birthday and stuff,” Gerard said.

            “It’s not my birthday,” I said.

            “Yeah it is,” he says, awkwardly scratching his head. “It’s why I took you out here. It was supposed to be your present.”

            “Oh,” I said and picked at the patchy grass beneath us.

            “Sorry… I guess I fucked that one up,” he said to the gravestone of Orson Redding 1924 – 1967. He looked heartbreakingly disappointed.

            “But I love it! Seriously, this is gnarly. No one’s ever taken me to a graveyard for recreational purposes. Plus my birthday’s tomorrow, so I’ll just consider it an early present.” Gerard looked pleased by my response. It was obvious that he didn’t get out much. He took another puff of weed and handed the joint to me. I managed not to cough this time, though I was still trying to figure out why people actually did this for fun.

            “How long does it take to set in?” I asked him.

            “Well you need more than two hits,” he said in this way that I don’t know how to explain. Gerard Way was never mean. He sounded sort of caring about everything, like he was looking out for everyone except himself. Dragging heavily on the joint, he leaned against the tombstone across from me, staring me. That was another thing about him. He was freakishly stare-y. You’d swear to God that he had maybe x-ray vision or something.

            “Oh… right. I know that.” Why on Earth do I have to be the awkward 15-year-old with absolutely no life experience? We passed the joint back and forth for a while and shot the shit some more. I told him about my cousin that thought he could talk to plants and when my parents stopped inviting him to family reunions. In turn, Gerard Way told me about how he and his brother found the graveyard.

            “I spend a lot of time here. Shit, that makes me sound pretty morbid and creepy, huh?” he said.

            “Not really. I’m creepy too,” I joked. So, yeah, Gerard Way was morbid and creepy. That didn’t really make him a bad guy though.

            “Do you want to camp out here? I’ve got blankets and stuff! We can camp out here! Do you want to?” Gerard Way asked. He was excited. I couldn’t tell if it was the drugs or if he just really wanted a friend.

            “Sure, I’d love to. You… have blankets?” I asked. There were no such blankets in sight.

            “Oh yeah… they’re just, hang on.” In his slightly drugged state, he walked from where we were sitting to a tombstone. Stashed between it and a tree was a milk crate stuffed with flashlights, blankets, and bottles in brown paper bags. It was right out of a fucking teen movie or something. Only Gerard fucking Way.

            “I think it’s working,” I said, feeling my limbs relax and vision go soft. By that time, I had gone through my first joint and was eagerly puffing on my second one, playing with the smoke I exhaled. Gerard found that really funny.

            “Hey, do you wanna do something really cool?” Gerard asked, setting the crate down.

            “Do what?”

            “Wanna do blowbacks?” Gerard asked.

            “What?” I yelped, panic gripping my insides.

            “You know, blowbacks? Shotgunning? What’d you think I – oh my God. You didn’t think I meant – “

            “Shut up,” I said trying my very best to disappear into the ground.

            “You totally thought I meant – “

            “I said shut up.” Gerard collapsed of the ground in a fit of laughter. I turned a shade of red only a cartoon character could match. Why did I have to be such an idiot?

            “Hold still,” he said and pulled himself up so we were both sitting cross-legged in the wet grass. “Like this,” he said, putting the unlit end of the joint carefully between my lips. Gerard nodded and wrapped both of his hands around my neck to steady himself. With his palms flat against my skin, he took the hot end into his mouth just inches away from my face and blew. He stared directly at me the whole time, not even blinking an eye. The hit lasted longer than it probably should have, and even after Gerard was done, I sat with the joint in my mouth in what I suppose was awe. Of what, I’m not too sure.

            “Earth to Frankie,” Gerard said. I snapped out of it and handed the joint back to him.

            “I don’t think it’s working. I’m just kind of confused,” I said, trying to concentrate for a long time on one thing. I was failing so far.

            “It’s like that everyone’s first time too. Ooh, sit still,” Gerard said, an evil gleam suddenly caught in his eyes. I obliged completely. He leaned forward again and stared at me with his speckled eyes again with the same intensity. Then, he did something really weird. Gerard put his thumb against my lower lip and brushed at it. My brain shut down completely.

            “Frank, open your mouth,” he said, smirking. Oh. Right. He was just trying to get me to open my mouth. Drugs, right. Yes, I know where I am right now. I know what I’m doing. Totally. I opened my mouth a little for him and he held my jaw in one hand while taking another drag. You wouldn’t believe how mature Gerard looked when he did shit like this. Seriously, he was a complete twitchy freak most of the time but sometimes he could be suave as fuck. I think maybe he just did it to fuck with everyone else, like he knew something that you haven’t got a clue about.

            So right then he leaned in, so fucking close to me, and my heart was pounding in my ears. I don’t think I could have moved if I tried. This time only watching his hand on my jaw, he blew a thin stream of smoke into my mouth. Shutting my eyes tight and trying my best to remember the sensation, I inhaled. Something, a final bit of daring I guess, took over me and I playfully blew smoke into his face. Gerard scrunched his nose up and backed away. The moment was over, whatever it was, but it left me feeling really weird.

            “You have a scar on the bridge of your nose,” he said.

            “It’s from when I got the chicken pox.” All I could think about was him noticing my scars, wondering about my skin. He paid attention to me. Shit, I felt fucking weird then.

            This was all Gerard Way’s damn fault.


	8. Chapter 8

["Distress Signal" - Tigers Jaw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oQmUv_EREI)

 

December 17th, 1993

 

            “I am so baked.” I sigh and pass the joint back to Gerard. The bastard is taking up the whole goddamn bed, so I’m practically on top of him. The heat’s still broken, so we’re wrapped tightly in about six blankets. He looks damn hilarious all bundled up with his hair always in his stupid eyes that don’t even get red when he’s high. I feel like laughing at him and brushing the hair out of his face. So I do both. Well, sort of. I end up laughing so hard that when I reach out to him, I sort of smack him in the face which made both of us laugh even harder.

            “You are the weirdest fucker ever,” I say while he exhales the last of our joint into my face.

            “Yeah?” he answers, ruffling my hair. I poke at his nose, the same almost translucent white color of my skin.

            “You’re a vampire,” I say.

            “I am?” he asks, very concerned. Gerard’s funny because he always takes everything so damn seriously.

            “Mhm,” I say again and roll right on top of him, biting at his neck playfully.

            “Frankie!” he yelps as we fumble in our blankets. “Shit!” he says and we topple to the floor. I glare at him while he meekly shrugs. I splay myself out on my back, feeling the icy floor beneath my thin t-shirt.

            “It’s fucking freezing,” I say.

            “I know.” We’re both quiet. Gerard’s sort of a total idiot. He always leaves shit lying around then trips over it, so there’s stuff on the floor poking into our backs. Looking at him now, I’m so glad that we’re friends. I mean we really wouldn’t have been otherwise if not for that day at the movies. He’s the kind of guy that scowls and sighs dramatically at everything, but I totally know better. That kid was soft as hell. When he’s really happy, he does this thing where he grins meekly and scrunches up his nose, which he’s doing right now.

            “Take cover!” I shout and throw the blankets over our heads. Gerard yelps at my sudden attack. “When I was a kid I used to do this all the time.” I take a moment to find Gerard’s face in the sudden darkness. When I can see the hazel of his eyes, I continue. “I always felt really safe inside forts. I couldn’t ever fuck something up. What happens in the fort stays in the fort.” Gerard nods, and I feel the blanket brush against my face. It’s warming up down here, and I can feel Gerard’s breath against my face.

            “Mikey’s staying over at Shaun’s,” Gerard says. “So… I don’t know. If you want to spend the night here… I wouldn’t mind. Your parents would probably flip their shit if you came home smelling like this anyways.”

            “Cool,” I say, but I’m suddenly overwhelmed with a wave of exhaustion. “I’m so sleepy.”

            “Yeah, weed makes you tired.”

            “Weed makes me horny too,” I say. Gerard raises an eyebrow at me, and I giggle to myself. “Doesn’t weed make you horny?”

            “Uhh… sometimes,” he says. I laugh some more. Gerard really is so dorky. He’s the only teenage boy I know that’s not totally obsessed with sex.

            “I’m so cold,” I say.

            “Here,” Gerard offers. He wraps an arm around my shoulders, pulling our bodies closer together. Okay, that’s different. I feel so strange pressed up against Gerard’s side to preserve heat. It’s not like it’s anything… intimate. It’s totally just friendly. At least, I think it is. I’m not gay or anything. God… no.

            “You can sleep… if you want…” Gerard says to me. I don’t want to – I want to spend every waking second with this dweeb – but I must have because the next thing I know I’m blinking blearily out of sleep. We’ve shifted positions. Gerard’s head is now buried in between my shoulder blades, his forearm and hand resting on my thigh. I try to remember my dream, but it’s slipped away. It’s right about then that I feel the awkward boner between my legs. Jesus Christ, just my fucking luck. It’s not that I can just _leave_ it there. Gerard would think it was because of _him._ Fuck! But if I move then I’ll wake him up and then…

            I try to think of cold showers and gross things but I can barely think with Gerard’s soft breath between my shoulder blades and the soft flesh of his belly just barely brushing my ass. Everything’s so warm and comfortable in my sleepy state of mind. It wouldn’t be so bad if I just have a real quick jerk off, right?

            I exhale softly when I get my hand around my dick. After taking a moment to make sure that Gerard is still asleep I start a slow pace, trying to barely move at all. The familiar warm sensation spreads from the pit of my stomach to my toes. I move slightly so my head and shoulder peek out of the blanket. The fresh air hits me like a wave. Gerard and the piles of blankets around me are heavy and a little rough, but not entirely unpleasant. In fact, they feel kind of fucking amazing. It’s all I can do not to rub up against him behind me while I work my hand around my cock.

            I’m getting into it now, speeding up and trying to get over with it already. I’m so into it, focusing on keeping my hips still and twisting my wrist around the base of my dick. Oh god, it’s so good. My eyes are pulled tightly shut and I’m beginning to whimper under my breath. I’m so into it but then I feel Gerard begin to move beside me. I pull my hands out of my jeans immediately in fear of being caught. However, it’s Gerard this time that softly rubs his hips against my ass. I can feel his hard on through his jeans. I lean back into him and palm myself. He moves his hand up my thigh closer and closer to the waistband of my jeans until, suddenly, he freezes. I stop too. Through the haze of the last traces of weed in my system and sleep, I think about what’s actually happening. I’m jerking off. I’m jerking off right next to Gerard. With him practically on top of me! And… I like it. Wait, no. That’s not true. I would like it if it was anyone. I do _not_ like Gerard. Not in that way. This doesn’t mean anything. I’m just in bed with my best friend and the rest of the house is empty. We’re both still pretty stoned. And we’re both horny as fuck. I do not think about the time I accidentally saw Gerard changing in the locker room and dreamt about it that night. Nor do I think about the time that my dad got mad at me as a kid for trying on a dress because that would made me a “fairy”. Because I’m _not_ gay.

            Before I can say anything, apologize profusely to Gerard, or run away in embarrassment, though, Gerard rolls over onto his back. On his face, is a total shit eating grin. He throws the blankets off of us.

            “You were jerking off,” he says. I am speechless.

            “Thought so. Wanna see who can come first?” And, just like that, he’s at it. He’s clearly not new to this either. I’m practically ogling him and the rhythm of his hand inside his jeans. Up and down, up and down. Gerard lets out an experimental moan and closes his eyes. His hand reaches up his shirt and he sighs in relief. I’m in awe of him, the way his hips and fingers move around himself. My dick twitches persistently in response. My stomach’s basically a mess of nervous energy but I finally manage to get my fingers around my own dick. And I just go for it. Gerard looks at me and giggles at the noise I make. The blankets we’re laying on top smell like Gerard and I gasp out loud. Gerard’s mumbling curse words under his breath as he bucks up into his hands.

            “Oh shit,” he says.

            “I’ve never done this before,” I manage through my gritted teeth. I turn on my side and Gerard mirrors me. There’s a strip of sweat running down the side of his neck and he grins when he sees me biting my lip, staring intently at him. It sends another jolt straight down my dick.

            “Can I see?” I practically blurt out at him. What he’s doing looks so good…

            “Oh shit,” I pant as I feel my orgasm building in the pit of my stomach. I can’t think about anything except getting off.

            “Frankie?” Gee asks looking right at me.

I come all over my t-shirt, not even caring, my heart pounding so hard that I’m sure he can hear it. Riding out my orgasm, I watch Gerard falling apart underneath his own fingers, arching his back fluidly. He bites his lip through a smirk and with one last thrust comes all over his hand. I roll on my back, breathing heavily. I can barely speak.

            “Frank?” Gerard asks softly.

            “Yeah?” I say back.

            “Am I beautiful?”

            “Boys aren’t supposed to be beautiful,” I say.

            “Oh. Am I handsome?” Gerard asks.

            “No, stupid, you’re beautiful.” We share the silence.

            At last, Gerard get up and tosses a t-shirt to me.

            “I’m gonna take a shower,” he says and disappears into the bathroom.

            We don’t speak of this again. It’s not like we’re gay or anything.

***

            Gerard enters the house to find Mikey sitting on the floor legs splayed out in front of him and staring intensely at two large boxes of garlic bread.

            “Why the _hell_ did you get garlic bread? You hate garlic bread,” Gerard says, sitting by his side and mirroring his position.

            Mikey looks up with wide, traumatized eyes. “She pressured me into it.”

            “Who?”

            “The lady of the phone! I could tell. She was _judging_ me.”

            “She wasn’t judging you, dumbfuck.”

            “She totally was, ass taxi,” Mikey retorts.

            “Ooh, good one. Did you just come up with that?”

            “Just come up with what?” Shaun asks, coming into the room.

            “Ass taxi.”

            “Shit waffle. Oh is that pizza?” He grabs a slice. “Ew, Mikey. Why did you get so much garlic bread?”

            “The lady on the phone was judging him,” Gerard explains.

            “It’s true, those phone order ladies will fuck with your mind,” Shaun says and sits on Mikey’s other side and joins their staring contest with the offending party. “Okay, this is boring. Who wants drinks?” Mikey and Gerard both raise their hands, so their friend rises yet again to bang around in their kitchen.

            “You know, I’d still love you if were a pansy,” Mikey says casually.

            “I’m not a fucking pansy!” Gerard protests too loudly. Shaun’s laughter can be heard from the kitchen. Where the hell is this conversation even coming from?

            “But if you were, it wouldn’t bother me,” Mikey continues, fluffing his long blonde hair. “Frank’s pretty cute.” Gerard drops his slice of pizza in surprise.

            “No he’s not. I don’t like Frank!” He makes a point of dusting off his pizza so Mikey doesn’t see how red his face is.

            “No need to yell.”

            “I’m not yelling!” Gerard is totally yelling.

            “So do you want to know how to tell?”

            “How to tell what?”

            “If you’re a pansy.”

            “No.”

            “David Bowie.” Mikey pulls a flattened cigarette box out from under him. He pulls the first few cigarettes out, inspecting them.

            “What?” Gerard asks. He can’t _believe_ Mikey dragged him into this conversation.

            “All the pansies want to do David Bowie.”

            “Shut up!” Gerard says and shoves the wasted cigarettes out of his hands. “I don’t want to _do_ David Bowie.”

            “Do you want to do Frank?”

            “No!” he squeaks. Gerard doesn’t know _what_ he wants.

            “Because it’s okay if you do.”

            “Well I don’t.”

            “You know they do it up the ass?” Mikey says, staring at Gerard with this creepily blank expression.

            “Ew! God, Mikey!” Gerard is sure that all the blood in his body has flooded into his face. “Can we _not_ have this conversation?”

            “It’d totally still love you if you were a pansy,” his brother says, turning to face his brother head on, grinning ever so slightly.

            “Okay, Mikey.” Can this conversation just be _over_?

            “Just in case you are.” Mikey inhales the smoke, cheeks hollowing over his bony face.

            “I’m not.”

            “I know. Just saying.” He shrugs.

            “Okay, Mikey,” Gerard shudders and slides into an even more slumped position. Shaun rejoins them, tossing the two of them their sodas, and also mirroring their sitting positions Almost as if on queue, Frank bursts through the front door and saunters into the living room, adorably oblivious. Mikey waves, Shaun nods, and Gerard – consumed by utter humiliation – manages a strangled “Hi Frank”.

            “Holy shit, is that garlic bread? Fuck yes!”

***

 

January 30th, 1993

 

            Of all the greatest hits of bathroom stall graffiti Frank Iero and Gerard Way managed to take the prize for most controversial. Winter of Gerard’s senior year, they had written FRANK + GERARD in the fourth floor bathroom, Frank’s name scribbled in his wide messy script and Gerard’s slanting to the left. They were staking their claim. Last year the bathroom had belonged to the burnouts, but after they had graduated the room and the next generation of burnouts had discovered a secret space between the language wings, the bathroom had remained unclaimed territory until Gerard had caught senior year laziness just a little too early and Frank had eagerly followed in his wake, determined to finally be deemed “a rebel”. Smoking cigarettes, shrugging their oversized jackets around until they were sure that they looked acceptably disheveled became the daily routine. And right in the first stall in between the crudely doodled dicks and Nirvana lyrics were their names. They couldn’t say that it didn’t cause quite a stir when they first wrote it though.

            For the most part it was simply jokes about the two of them or suspicious stares every time that they appeared together. The only person to ever approach them about it was Jarvis King when he tried to bum weed off Gerard. Gerard had been in there with Frank and a few other guys that they didn’t really know, both of them attempting to blow smoke rings. Everything had been going fine until,

            “Frank plus Gerard? What kind of gay shit is that?” Gerard’s stomach dropped.

            “Why the hell do you care?” Frank asked before he could say anything. It was not the smartest thing to say.

            “Hey chill out, no need to get all defensive about your boyfriend.”

            “Not boyfriends.” Gerard cleared his throat. “We aren’t… we’re not boyfriends.” That drew some laughter from the boys around them and Gerard crossed his arms self-consciously.

            “Right. Well it wouldn’t be a surprise if you two were fags,” Jarvis said.

            “What does that mean?” Gerard asked. Like hell he looked gay!

            “Just that… you guys are kinda close,” Jarvis backpedaled.

            “Whatever, get out of my bathroom. I don’t have any weed.” Gerard pointedly jumped onto the sink and went back to his smoke rings.

            “You literally have weed in your ha – “

            “Get out!” Gerard yelled. Jarvis made a face and everyone went out, grumbling.

            “Thanks, Gerard. Like fuck those assholes, you know?” Frank said quietly and certainly not convincingly.

            “You can leave too,” Gerard said. He didn’t look at Frank.

            “Wait, but… you serious?” Frank stared at him, waiting for an answer that Gerard wouldn’t ever give. “What the hell, man?”

            “Hey, I don’t need this, alright? I don’t need a fucking sophomore following me around and making me look like a giant fag!” Frank shrank against the wall until he was the same Frank that Gerard had met in the movie theater, the one that stared at him with huge drugged out eyes while he masturbated on the floor, the same Frank that Gerard liked to pretend that only he could see. Frank pushed off the dirty bathroom wall and made his way to the door.

            “Wait, Frankie,” Gerard said, stubbing out his joint. “I didn’t mean that. It’s okay, you can… don’t be mad at me, please.” Frank turned around and looked at him with dead eyes under the slightly buzzing fluorescent lights. “That was a really douchey thing to say. I don’t think you’re a fag. That asshole just put me on edge.”

            “That wasn’t cool. Because I’m not like that.”

            “I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

            “And I’m not gay. Just so you know.”

            “Yeah I know. Gross.”

            “You’re going to have to pay me back with the rest of that joint.” Frank cracked a smile and it felt almost as if things were back to normal, the entire exchange just a blip on their stupid teenage radars.

            “Ugh you only want me for my drugs!” Gerard sighed melodramatically before offering up the joint. “Did I ever tell you about why I got held back?” he asked.

            “… no,” Frank said warily.

            “I got busted for possession last February. The weed wasn’t even mine.”

            “Whose was it?”

            “… Mikey’s. I guess it’s still my fault though.”

            “Why?”

            “Because I got him into it. Not because either of us really enjoy it. I like alcohol way more, but… I dunno like someone told me that you smoke weed and you’re supposed to get super hungry, right?”

            “Yeah so? Oh.”

            “He used to be this chubby kid, it’s kind of in my family’s genes or whatever, and everyone thought it was cute when he was little but I guess people stop thinking so when you get into high school or whatever. So when… everyone was really proud of him and told him that he should go out for sports, that he was looking great. I was the only one that noticed. _Really_ noticed. I mean, he’s my little brother. How could I just… he just lost so much weight.” Gerard’s voice was weak

            “And you took the fall for him?” Frank asked.

            “Of course,” Gerard said vaguely, then seemed to come into himself. “Of course,” he repeated more defiantly.

            “Why’d you tell me that?” Frank asked.

            “I don’t know. I felt like I should.”

            The bell rang.

            “I should get to class,” Frank mumbled.

            “Yeah me too.”

            “Really?”

            “Uhh, yeah.”

            “Right, duh. You have to do that to graduate. Ha ha.”

            Gerard gave Frank a stiff little wave.

            “I’ll call you tonight, okay Frankie? I rented Withnail and I from Blockbuster. Wanna watch it together?”

            “Huh? Oh sure, I’ll get it on my way home.”

            Frank was halfway through the door when Gerard, awkwardly scratching his neck, asked, “Hey man, are we cool?”

            “Oh yeah. Totally. We’re cool, yeah.”

            “Okay.” There was a slow silence between them. The second bell rang.

            “You’re gonna be late,” Gerard reminded him.

            “Right.” Frank got halfway through the door again. “Are you coming?”

            “What?” Gerard had been looking at himself solemnly in the mirror. “Oh yeah, I’ll be there in a second. Don’t be late, dude. We’re gonna get out of here for real next semester. No fucking around.”

            “ _You’re_ gonna be out of here next semester. I’ve got two more years.”

            “That’s what I meant. Seriously, get your ass outta here, kid.” Frank laughed.

            “Shut up.”

            “Bye Frank.”

            “Bye Gerard.” Frank gave a little wave, then let the door swing on his way out.


	9. Chapter 9

[The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot - Brand New](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2RY26wQkc8)

 

Dear Gerard,

            My therapist told me to write this. Yeah, I know, I haven’t had a therapist since I was fucking seventeen, but I’m getting my life sorted out, I guess, so now I have a therapist. And she wanted me to write this. So here I am writing this.

            I spent forever thinking of what I’d say to you exactly, down to the very word. It’s sort of funny too because now I can’t think of anything to say, and you won’t even ever read this. Okay, fine. Here it goes.

            Remember that time when we were in high school and my parents were getting divorced? And it was the first time you ever saw me? I was a total wreck at Mikey’s birthday and all the guys that I had known for years didn’t say a thing, but you held my hand. I remember it feeling so natural, like just by holding someone’s hand, everything would turn out just fine. I know that that’s not really how things work, but you used to make me feel that way.

            I think you were the best boyfriend I ever had. Whenever I got sick (which was a lot) or depressed you were always there for me. You’d stay home from work and hold me close all day, even if it meant that you might get sick too. And you’d stroke my hair and sing. I loved it when you sang to me. I miss it now. That’s what I’m thinking about right now, probably because I’m sick and it feels strange that your hand isn’t in mine like on the first day I met you.

            I miss going out to dinner with you. I miss staying in with you and watching the Food Network. I miss hearing you sing in the shower and I miss the fact that you always expected me to do the fucking laundry even. I miss your neck and your hands. I miss your bad dancing, and I miss you telling me ideas for comics that you would never write. I miss a lot of things about you. You know what I don’t fucking miss? I don’t miss how you were always a little secretly ashamed of being queer. I don’t miss how you got jealous when I went out alone. Or how everything had to be so concrete or else you’d worry and act like the victim. I don’t miss reminding you to call your mother back. But I still miss you.

            Yesterday, I put away those pictures of us. Please don’t be mad at me, okay? Those two pictures next to each other that we have in the living room, the one with us outside that gas station when we tried to do the whole road trip thing in college and the picture of us at James’s wedding last summer. They were the last things of us that I got rid of. They’re in Ray's garage along with some other stuff of ours. I got rid of a bunch of thing after you left, but there’s still some of it here. Useless, probably, but it’s nice to have them around. I spent a long time looking at that first picture of us. What were you, like 25? Probably younger because I’m pretty sure that I still couldn’t drink legally. That didn’t stop us. I probably should have spent more of my 20’s drinking less. I would have loved to remember more of it. But… maybe not. I’m tired of having so many memories right now.

            You know, it’s really fine that you left. I won’t hold it against you. I did for a long time, but I think I know why you did it and you were right to. I think that it might have taken you leaving for us to work out, if that makes sense. And I’m a better person now. But not for you. For me. Would I have done anything differently so that you might have stayed or so that things might have changed? I don’t know.

            Anyways, that part about the memories was what I really wanted to say, I think. I’m done living in memories. And I’m sorry. And I love you. But I’m going to move on.

 

Love,

Frank

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S. Don't worry, fair readers, this is not the end!


	10. Chapter 10

["Trade Mistakes" - Panic! at the Disco](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxL3sMVGcLI)

 

May 15, present day

 

            I’m at Ray’s house when I spot it, nestled innocuously between Keith Richard’s memoir and dog eared sheet music, shoved to the corner of a bookshelf. I had been scanning the shelfs for any secrets, hints as to who Ray had become, looking for a way to pretend that those five years were just a brief weekend, when I saw Frank’s name in white against black and picked the book up up immediately. The cover was entirely black, only the slightly glossy raised letters betrayed the title. _My Chemical Romance_ by Frank Iero. I pocketed it without a second thought, the book burning into my thigh the rest of the afternoon.

            “Hello?” Frank’s voice is sleepy and slow and I smile to myself, trying to figure out how it could be that Frank is already asleep at 11 o’clock.

            “I found your book.”

            “Gerard?”

            “Yeah, hi,” I say hurriedly. “You didn’t tell me that it was _poetry._ ”

            “Uhh, yeah. They’re just like song lyrics anyways, but… not. You know what I mean.”

            “Wow, I can’t imagine you writing poetry.”

            “So what’d you think of it?”

            I’m confused. “What?”

            “What’d you think of the book?” I’m very quiet for a moment. “You didn’t read it yet?”

            “Well… no.” I stare at the book accusingly like it should have told me that I had to _read_ it before _call_ ing him, of course.

            “Then why’d you call?”

            “… to tell you that I got your book.” I can practically feel him giggling through the phone. “I’m gonna hang up now.”

            “Bye Gerard.”

            I tear through the pages, letting every word scald my skin like holy water. It’s brutal. He didn’t leave anything out and so each line reads like his guts poured out onto a sterile surface and he doesn’t even sound sorry, not one bit. I see myself everywhere in it, more than I probably am, tucked and torn apart between stanzas. If I could regret how much I hurt him more than I already do, I would. He contradicts himself and speaks truths that every other human that came before him as been too cowardly to stutter. When it’s not me, it’s manic ramblings, fierce self-hatred, longing, passion, so much anger, and love. I read it all the way through, and then again, and then again. The red LED lights on my bedside table flash 1:12 when I call Frank back.

            “Took you long enough,” he says.

            “That was intense.”           

            “I’ve been told.”

            “Do you wanna come over tonight?” I ask, impulsively.

            “You mean right now?”

            “Yeah, sure. Come over, I’ll make us some coffee.”

            “Can I come over in four hours?”

            “All this sleep bullshit. If you don’t watch out, you’re gonna turn into an old person,” I joke.

            “Sometimes I feel ancient,” he says wearily but matter of factly. I’m too afraid to agree.

            “In the morning?” I ask.

            “Yeah… morning,” he mumbles. Even long after he hangs up the phone, I feel the familiar tug of longing to be sleeping next to him, listening to his breaths even out like all those nights so long ago when I had nothing else but insomnia and him. I slip in and out of sleep, watching the sky flood like a watercolor and flipping through random pages of Frank’s book. _Whiskey filled serenades… I’d love you to hate my guts if they weren’t already covered in these damned ulcers… to predict the inevitable…_

Three sharp knocks on my door wake me up. I realize as I’m moving to open the door that I’m still in the clothes I wore yesterday and my hair is all rumpled. When I open the door though, he’s similarly disheveled, the two of us in no way decent. It brings a smile to both of our faces and even a small flip in my stomach.

            “I still feel like I’m fucking seventeen. Even more when I’m with you,” Frank says over coffee. He’s brilliant in my small apartment. It doesn’t compare to the one we used to live in but with him at the kitchen table, it feels just a little bit more like home.

            “I know. I thought once I became an adult, I’d know what the hell I was doing half the time,” I agree.

            “Do you remember the leaves?” I ask because a memory buried to deeply within me is rising.

            “Uhh… the leaves?”

            “We cut class to go see the leaves in New York. To those hills and it was like a three hour drive and you played me a ton of bad local band’s tapes and stuff?”

            “How do you remember all that? I feel like my entire past is blurring all together.” I grab his hand out of excitement, and he doesn’t pull away but pulls closer.

            “You know how the leaves turn all red and orange and yellow up there. Like in Jersey they just sort of turn brown and fall off the trees and everything’s covered in wet mush, but you said that your parents used to take you to New York before the divorce so I took you up there right before I was gonna leave for college. And we just spent the afternoon listening to those tapes and staring at all the different colors. That was the first time I knew. That I love you.” My voice catches awkwardly in the middle of the sentence and I have to cough several times before finishing.

            “You mean, you loved me. ‘It was the first time that you knew you _loved_ me.’” I stare at his unreadable face then let my head down in shame. “Oh.” I keep my eyes trained on the cup of coffee in my hands so I don’t have to see what face he’s making. The kitchen chair scrapes against the floor, and I’m positive he’s leaving when I see his shoes pause next to me in the corner of my eyes. One of his tattooed hands tips my chin up. It’s our first kiss all over again: precise, dreamy, careful, full of longing.

            Frank pulls back ever so slightly and whispers, “I think you and I were meant to be together even if we weren’t meant to be happy.”

            I stand up and kiss him harder. The relief that swells through my body feels like enough to stop my heart right then and there, enough to make me cry and scream. His movements are familiar, the same rhythmic and passionate patterns, but Frank’s skin feels different. The magnetism between us isn’t lost though and all I can feel is a pulsing _I want, I want, I want._ I pull away though because my mind hasn’t stopped traveling at a thousand miles an hour and before I can go past the point of no return, I need to get this out. When we separate again, he cradles my face with both hands and mine travel to the same places on his face, our elbows knocking together. He’s smiling.

            “Remember when we were dirty college kids? And those days when we’d never leave your apartment and just call in sick for four days straight until we got fired? Things seemed different then. Time seemed different. Everything was possible. I think somewhere along the way we forgot how to be happy like that.” He kisses me, excitedly, and our noses bump together a little. We stumble together like newborn Bambi’s and in the doorway of my bedroom, we’re smiling so hard that we can’t even make our mouths meet.

            “I’m happy right now,” he says, stripping my shirt. My hands are greedy underneath his own and before I know it, we’re both lying on my bed, exploring the parts of us that we have forgotten in between breathless kisses. We cherish each moment, healing the wounds that separated us for so long. I feel simple beneath his fingers. All my plagues feel so small. We make love in the early morning and, sure, it’s cheesy but it’s _real_ , I forgot how it felt to _really_ be with someone the way I’m with him. Even when we’re finished, we spend an eternity just rolling in my bed sheets, kissing and touching, never letting go, not for a moment. Finally, Frank nestles himself on top of me and mumbles something about missing last night’s Iron Chef America. If I could muster a laugh I would, but I’m so exhausted that all I do is kiss his forehead.

            “I wish I could go back and fix all the mistakes I made with you. I wish I’d stayed here. I wish I could stay here,” I say, guilt creeping up inside of me. Frank turns very still. I wonder if he stopped breathing. Finally, he pushes up slightly and looks at me very seriously.

            “Well why don’t you? This time, I mean. Why don’t you stay?” My head spins.

            “Could I? I mean, do you want me to stay?”

            He climbs on top of me and presses both hands on my chest, pushing our foreheads together. “Forever,” he smiles.

 

            I don’t think that there’s a person out there for everyone. Someone to spend a lifetime with, your happily ever after. But sometimes, in a day or an hour or just a moment, someone can be your soul mate.

_I’m lying on the hood of your father’s car. It has to be home by seven, but we’ll never make it in time. You’re giving off soft heat next to me, even in the chilly October air. Orange, red, and brown leaves shiver at each other under the watery sun. You’re watching them, but I’m not. And then, quite slowly, you shift. You place your hand on my stomach and play with the zipper of my jacket. You kiss my shoulder softly, politely. I don’t know it just then, but I’m in love. That’s the feeling that’s hiding at the base of my throat, the one I can’t describe. If I’ve never been in love since, if I’ll never be in love again, I know for just that moment with your hand on my stomach and your mouth on my sleeve that I love you._

_And it’s happening even now. Moments like that stay with you, you know. When the wind blows in a certain direction or I get that feeling of falling when I’m trying to sleep, it’s happening. Your lips have scarred me. Every goddamn inch of me_.

            No, I don’t think that there’s a single person for everyone. A single person for your single life. But sometimes, every once in a very long time, if you’re lucky, and my god if you try, someone can be your soul mate for a lifetime of moments.


End file.
